Disco Dancer

A couple of weekends back my friends and I rented out the movie known for its imperfection and unintentional comedy: Disco Dancer. We had been longing to see Mithun Chakraborthy aka Mithunda in action. At the local Indian store in Ann Arbor (Bombay Grocers) we decided to check if the movie was first available or if it was rented out due to high demand. After checking the DVDs in the Hindi movie section at the store we couldn't find the movie and assumed that the movie was rented out. But we decided to ask the store manager just to confirm.

Me: Excuse me. Do you have the movie "I am a disco dancer" on dvd? (for some reason i always thought that the name of the movie was I am a disco dancer. Its probably because of the song)

Manager: Disco Dancer. Haha. On DVD. Ha ha. No way. It might be on VHS. Just check and see if its there.

So we checked and as he said it was there. While renting out the movie he charged us only $1 instead of the usual $2. And when I asked him about the return date, he said I could bring it back at my own convenience. These were not positive signs for a few excited souls to watch a Mithun movie. But we watched it anyway since we trusted our dada i.e. Mithun.

I must say, the movie was hilarious. Though it was meant to be a serious movie, watching it 20 years after the release made a big difference. I mean you got to appreciate the alacrity in the muscial prodigy for holding an electric guitar in one hand, drumming with the other and simulataneously dancing and singing thereby exemplifying ambidexterity and multitasking at the same time which no other prodigy has even dreamt of, not even bill gates.

The story was very similar to the 80's movies with a muti-milllionaire villain torturing a fatherless kid and later on the kid taking revenge on the villain. But there are some dialogues that just made me laugh up to the point of me throwing up in front of the TV. As I said before this kid was a prodigy and he grows up to become a great musician. He becomes as rich as the villain. The mom, kid and the villain all meet at an upscale party and the villain (obviously) doesn't recognize the kid (who is now Mithun) unlike Mithun and his mom who are living to this day to take revenge. The villain offers Mithun a glass of wine which the kid does not accept and in return he reminds him of the day (15 yrs ago) when he insulted the kid, slapped the mom and stole his guitar. Saying this, Mithun and the mom leave the party. On their way back home the mom tells Mithun in the car "Son, you have now fulfilled all my wishes in life and I can now die in peace."

In another scene, the villain wants to take revenge because Mithun became a bigger music star than his son and so he wanted to kill Mithun. What does he do? The villain connects Mithun's electric guitar to 5000 Volts so when he starts to play he would die instantly. But his mom heard this plot through reliable sources and follows Mithun to the stage. Instead of just warning her son to play his guitar, she picks it up herself and starts to play ultimately killing herself.

There were other crazy parts of the movie which I do not wish to delve upon but you know where this movie is going. Other minor issues were subtitles. Since my hindi is not very good I had to read the subtitles and so it was like reading a disco dancer novel. They did confuse Laks and millions to be the same in the movie. Wherever laks was mentioned in the movie, the subtitles would say millions but in actuality 10 laks is a million.

Nevertheless, this movie is great to watch. Caution: Never watch it alone. Always get a whole bunch of people and get drunk to watch the movie in order to relish it. Finally, you cannot miss the disco dancer in action dressed up in colored glass suit with mirrors, buttoned down shirt and an electric guitar with absolutely no coordination between the background music and the hand movements on the guitar.